Time limits on penalty assessments
4(1)Subject to sub-paragraphs (2) and (3) below, an assessment under paragraph 2 above to a civil penalty shall not be made more than three years after the conduct to which the penalty relates.
(2)Subject to sub-paragraph (3) below, if aggregates levy has been lost—
(a)as a result of any conduct for which a person has been convicted of an offence involving fraud,
(b)in circumstances giving rise to liability to a penalty under paragraph 1 of Schedule 4 to this Act, or
(c)as a result of conduct falling within paragraph 7(1) of Schedule 6 to this Act (evasion),
an assessment may be made for any civil penalty relating to that conduct as if, in sub-paragraph (1) above, for “three years” there were substituted “twenty years”.
(3)Where, after a person’s death, the Commissioners propose to assess an amount of a civil penalty due by reason of some conduct of the deceased—
(a)the assessment shall not be made more than three years after the death; and
(b)if the circumstances are as set out in sub-paragraph (2) above—
(i)the modification of sub-paragraph (1) above contained in that sub-paragraph shall not apply; but
(ii)any assessment which (applying that modification) could have been made immediately after the death may be made at any time within three years after it.